SEARCH FOR IT ON WRITER OF POP

Subscribe to this blog

FOLLOW BY EMAIL

FEATURED POST

MOVIE REVIEW
It only seems right that Captain Marvel is being released on 2019’s International Women's Day. Since 2008’s Iron-Man, Marvel has presented a good chain, albeit a bit short, of strong women characters starting with Pepper Potts. Black Widow became the first Marvel female superhero to grace the screens in Iron-Man 2 followed by Scarlet Witch, Gamora, Mantis, The Wasp, Okoye and Shuri. But today, Brie Larson heads the first female-driven superhero movie for Marvel Studios.

Let’s just get this out of the way – this movie packs a “girl power” punch without putting men down in the process. While their intentions are good, too many films try to present a message of female empowerment while emasculating men in the process. Sure, the opposite has been true for many years, but this is no way to move on with injustice and certainly isn’t a message that today’s girls need to here.

Marvel Studios has toyed with an “anything you can do, I can do better” attitude between its men and…

This Day in Pop Culture for April 10

'The Great Gatsby is Published - Became a Hit Later

F. Scott Fitzgerald’s The Great Gatsby was published on this day in 1925. Set in the fictional town of West Egg on Long Island in 1922, the story centers on the young millionaire, Jay Gatsby and his obsession with the former debutante, Daisy Buchanan. Themes included in the story dealt with a twisted version of the American Dream with decadence, idealism and social upheaval during the roaring twenties. Some have described the story as a cautionary tale. When it was first published, the book received mixed reviews and did not sell well – only 20,000 copies of the book were sold during the first year. Sadly, Fitzgerald died in 1940 feeling as if he were a failure but after World War II, the book experienced a revival and today is considered a literary classic that is often used with English studies in American high schools. Some consider The Great Gatsby to be a good example of the “Great American Novel.”

First Color 3D Film Premieres

Warner Bros. is responsible for the first colored 3D movie, House of Wax, which was released to theaters for the first time on this day in 1953. House of Wax starred Vincent Price and premiered two days after the world’s first black-and-white 3D movie, Man in the Dark, presented by Columbia Pictures. House of Wax was also the first 3D movie to feature stereophonic sound at a regular movie theater. It was one the biggest hits of that year, earning about $5.5 million and revitalized Price’s career creating a high demand for him to play other crazed maniac roles. The movie was rereleased to theaters in 1971 and again in the 1980’s.

Popular Posts

VIDEO OF THE DAY
New second trailer for DC's Shazam! I'm not thrilled with the idea of kids seeing the superhero-in-training buying beer, but the rest looks good. Shazam! comes to theaters on April 5, 2019.

The Hula-Hoop Receives a Trademark
Although invented for hundreds of years earlier, Arthur Melin, founder of Wham-O products, received a trademark for “his” version of the hoop toy on this day in 1963. The Hula-Hoop was the first hoop toy to be made with plastic with the “shoop shoop” sound inside. The very first were sold for $1.98 and twenty million hoops were sold in the first six months of production. It was a big hit world-wide except for Japan who thought it incited improprieties and Russia who thought it was an example of the “emptiness of American culture.” In 1999, the Hula-Hoop was inducted into the National Toy Hall of Fame.

MOVIE REVIEW
While not exactly a golden rule, it is known fact that if a movie does well in the box office, chances are good that it will be followed by sequel and more often than not, we’ve come to expect that the sequel won’t measure up to the original. Add a third movie to the mix and you’re just asking for trouble. With animated movies, the expectations are often even lower. (Is anyone really surprised that the Ice Age movies keep getting worse?) But sometimes, as is the case with the Disney/Pixar Toy Story movies, we’re pleasantly surprised. Now you can add How to Train Your Dragon to that short list too.

One thing that DreamWorks Animation has understood about this series is that the story comes first, the hijinks come later. The very first Dragon movie proved that way back in 2010 with a strong story and with each chapter that has come after it, that story just keeps getting better. What started out as a cute kid’s story has become a powerful trilogy. We've seen these chara…